The Silence
by dattebayo1213
Summary: Songfic. Sakura thinks about Sasuke and the things that brought their team to where they are now.


Story: The Silence

A/N: Sorry that I've been gone so long. No one probably noticed, anyway. Mieke and I have been working on projects, both for and not for FF, and things have been getting busy with life and school. School especially. God, I hate the education system. Nonconformism is to be embraced, but those numbskulls running the corporate companies only want the robots that speak the same, act the same and talk the same to attend their schools, work their jobs and run their companies. I'd rather be myself, thanks.

Sorry for my rant on the futility of conformism. I do that a lot. Just ask Mieke. Anyway, on to the story. I am quite the Mayday Parade fan, and I decided I'd write this, finally, after having the idea bang at the walls of my head for months. I'm quite happy with the way it turned out, actually. But not too happy. I need reviews for that.

_Torn in two, she lies awake,__  
__The moon lights up the room like day__  
__Another night she spends alone,__  
__Without his touch of skin so cold_

Sakura lay on her bed, staring up at her ceiling. The alarm clock next to her beeped once, signaling the beginning of a new day. She sighed and kept staring, not caring as the date shifted from one number to another on the surface of her clock. It was only one more day without him. She had stopped counting the numbers too long ago to count even that.

_The blood that's running through her veins,__  
__With every beat there's no escape,__  
__Lost in everything she trusts,__  
__Still can't seem to get enough._

Sasuke. She turned to the picture resting on the headboard of her bed, gathering dust as it sat there, not being taken down to hug or to smile at or even just to look at any longer since he had left. She just lay there, twisting her head the slightest amount to look up at it, as if the idea of the four of them being like that again was an unreachable ideal of some sort, some sort of prize that was too far out of her reach. If the four of them was so hard, wouldn't the two of them be harder?

_Even though the world she loves,__  
__It won't ever be the way it was,__  
__And his heart of stone left hers breaking._

And it wasn't just Sasuke gone now. Naruto was gone as well, off chasing his dreams with that old pervert. Even Kakashi had moved on, taking missions, taking a new team… and what was she but the one that did nothing? She was useless, just as Sasuke had told her time and time again, nothing but someone to hold the boys back. She had resolved to become better, just in case he came back, but what was the point in that? Sasuke and Naruto would come back stronger, faster and better than her, just as always, and she'd still be the little girl that everyone had to protect, that everyone got hurt because of.

_Every night she cries and dies a little more each time,__  
__Say you love me (you love me),__  
__Nothing left inside__  
__Say you love me,__  
__And the silence will set her free._

A tear rolled down her cheek and she wiped it off, aghast at her own weakness. She shrugged it off after a couple seconds of amazement at how useless she truly was, assuring herself that this weakness was nothing new. It had always existed. She was always the weakest, and he had never hesitated to tell her so. Was he just putting her down? Or was it love? Or was he just trying to help?

_Memories they take her back,__  
__Every moment fades to black,__  
__Every kiss and every taste,__  
__She wishes time would ease her pain._

She had hoped ever so much for the second option when she had run after him, pleading with him to stay—not to leave the village, not to leave Naruto, not to leave Kakashi, not to leave **her**. But he had simply brushed her off and knocked her out, leaving her to wake up, alone, with her head spinning a few hours later, laid out on a bench. She had trudged home miserably, pausing in front of the Uchiha manor for a few seconds out of a sliver of hope that he would be there. She had trudged home miserably after waiting for hours upon hours and retreated into her room without a word to her parents, crying and clutching the picture of the team that would not be ever again to her heart and wondering why Sasuke had to break that family that they had built over the year they had spent together.

_Even though the world she loves,__  
__It won't ever be the way it was,__  
__And her heart is weak, her hands are shaking._

And then it had crumbled more and more from there. Naruto, in all his determination, had run after Sasuke time and time again, all for honoring a silly promise he had made to her. One promise that, in all honesty, she had never believed in the possibility of. He had gotten hurt time and time again, coming home one time with a hole ripped cleanly into his chest by Sasuke's Chidori.

_Every night she cries,__  
__And dies a little more each time,__  
__Say you love me (you love me),__  
__Nothing left inside,__  
__Say you love me,__  
__And the silence will set her free._

She had clutched the picture to her heart a second time, tears running down the glass separating her from the picture like rain down a window. That's what it was. There was a wall, an invisible one, keeping her from that, from who she was before, and who she was now. And who she was now had to leave him behind. But she couldn't.

_And every night she cries._

The thought made her wail more, until she heard her parents turning in their sleep and muttering. She shut up instantly, and took a few deep breaths to calm herself down, wiping her face until no trace remained of her grief, her weakness. Tomorrow, tomorrow she'd find something to do with herself.

_I don't know if I'll ever make this right,__  
__Cause I am just so broken by the bitterness of loneliness,__  
__And I'm so scared of this.__  
__I don't know if I'll ever make this right,__  
__Cause I am just so broken by the bitterness of loneliness,__  
__And I'm so scared._

That's why she had approached Tsunade, pleading with the woman to teach her the secrets of medicine so that, the next time Naruto came home broken and bleeding, she could help him, or if Kakashi got hurt, which she had deemed quite unlikely, she could help him as well. She could finally be useful, and shove Sasuke's words in his face. She could do this just as well as Naruto could, she was sure of it. And she was prepared to work as hard as she needed to do it.

_Even though the world she loves,__  
__It won't ever be the way it was,__  
__And his heart of stone left hers breaking._

The three years rolled by, the dates on her alarm clock changing in an endless flurry of numbers as she studied late into the night, flipping pages and absorbing information until she could do no more and then waking up as early as possible to begin the process again. For the afternoons, she'd go to Tsunade and practice for her what she had learnt, being hailed as a genius and a prodigy by her teacher before being asked to go buy her a beer. But any praise was enough for her, and she did all she could—she trained to fight, to heal, to speak with confidence, and she waited. She waited for Naruto, for Kakashi, and, although she never wanted to admit it anymore, she still waited for Sasuke.

_Every night she cries,__  
__And dies a little more each time,__  
__Say you love me (you love me),__  
__Nothing left inside,__  
__Say you love me,__  
__And the silence will set her free._

She still cried, every once in awhile, but she never held the picture close anymore. It had become something too far out of her reach. She, the useless girl, could never bring that back. It had to be the job of Kakashi, the father figure to all of them, strong, powerful, able to sacrifice everything for his friends and those he loved without hesitation, or Naruto, the ball of sunshine who could hold his own against the village's beloved prodigy, who could change the mood of a room with just one word, or a small smile, who made everyone who knew him personally happier with just a glance and a wave in their direction. Never her, not Sakura. She may have known more than Naruto, or been better than Kakashi at medical jutsus, but this was not something she could do. Useless little Sakura wasn't good enough for this.

_(Every night she cries,__  
__Every night she cries,__  
__The silence will set her free)_

And Naruto had come back, bearing news of new jutsus he had learned that he could bring Sasuke back with, just for her. He spoke exuberantly of everywhere he had gone, everything he had seen, everyone he had spoken to, and then, once his brilliant story was over and twenty bowls of ramen had been inhaled, he turned to her and asked the one question that would forever haunt Sakura. "So, when I was gone and all, what did you do?"

"Absolutely nothing." She wanted to answer, but instead regaled him with tales of training under Tsunade, finding the truth of her daily life for the past few years to be amazingly exciting to Naruto, who was bouncing on the very edge of his seat as she recounted dangerous training exercises, the various new jutsus she had learned and the minutiae of her daily routine to him.

"God, that's amazing, Sakura! We should fight, sometime, eh? To see if I'm still awesomer than you?" He nudged her shoulder with that impish glint in her eye. "Sure." She got up and pulled him along with her, pausing to leave the cash for his meal on the table. "Let's try now?" She would rebuild their team. They didn't need Sasuke anymore.


End file.
